Munitions Empire

The 1st Armored Division advanced north from Hidden Sword Gorge, almost sweeping through the Dahua Empire's flank positions. The advanced Panther Tanks began to appear frequently before the Dahua Empire's troops, further confirming the existence of this new type of tank.

The high-level military of the Dahua Empire was thrown into a panic upon receiving this new intelligence, as they really did not want to see the new weaponry of the Great Tang Kingdom.

Within the command center in Fengjiang, General Feng Kezhi of the Empire was being tormented by the fiery warfare of late.

Although his troops had stabilized their positions, the pressure was actually far from light for this commander.

On one hand, he had to always be ready to cope with the troubles caused by the Emperor's ignorant command from behind, and on the other, he had to prepare for an even fiercer attack that the Tang Army might launch afterward.

It's a joke, the Tang Army's halting of their advance was clearly not a result of the Dahua military's defense being effective, so General Feng Kezhi was very clear that when a force voluntarily stops its march, it's mostly to wait for reinforcements to arrive for a fiercer onslaught.

It's like boxing, one only pulls back their fists to organize a more threatening offensive. General Feng Kezhi understood this principle, so he had to be on strict alert.

The good news was that in the northwest of Dahua, in the Qin Country with its harsh natural conditions, the world's bravest and most skilled soldiers were arriving at the front line one after another, to fight for the Dahua Empire.

Although these troops from Qin Country sometimes didn't obey orders well and often violated agreements to plunder nearby villages to gather military pay and provisions, they were indeed fierce in battle.

But there was plenty of bad news too, such as the confirmed reports about the Tang Army's new tanks.

General Feng Kezhi looked at the officer delivering the message with an impatient face and asked with a tone filled with helplessness, "How come there are new tanks again? Are you sure they're not just an improved version of the Number 4 Tank?"

The officer nodded affirmatively and answered General Feng Kezhi's question, "I'm sure they're not. Those new tanks are very easy to identify, with the tank's hull using a large piece of sloped armor."

With his last shred of hope dashed, General Feng Kezhi's expression grew even grimmer. But he was somewhat psychologically prepared, because even he knew such news was generally not mistaken.

After all, the Number 4 Tank had been in use on the battlefield for quite a while, with its appearance, equipped with side skirts and a ring of curved steel plates around the turret, being very recognizable.

Moreover, the Number 4 Tank's front hull armor was vertically divided into upper and lower sections, a detail that was certain.

Upon hearing from the messenger officer that the Tang Army's new tanks had sloped frontal armor, General Feng Kezhi knew these were indeed not Number 4s.

So he went straight to the question he was most concerned about, "Why are they sloped? Is there any explanation for that?"

The precise thickness of the armor of the brand-new Panther Tanks and why it was designed with sloped armor were mysteries to the Dahua military; their understanding of these new tanks was almost nil.

The Number 4 Tanks had a record of being destroyed on the Qi Country battlefield. At the time, Qi Country and Shireck's consultants spared no expense to obtain many remnants of the Number 4 Tanks.

Even later when troops from another country destroyed the Number 4 Tanks, they took photos, recorded them, and measured many data points.

Although the data found from the wreckage was not precise, it provided some reference: it is quite different from being completely in the dark not knowing anything at all.

The unknown sometimes signifies fear!

The officer shook his head, knowing nothing, "I don't know, the engineers are still experimenting, but the data is not accurate, there are no results for now."

"Why have they already begun mass production, and our engineers here still haven't copied the results?" The next second, General Feng Kezhi blurted out a question that engineers from Shireck often asked.

The officer also gave an answer that Shireck's engineers often used in response to these kinds of questions, "We have almost no knowledge of the new technology, what we're using now is all outdated technology from the Great Tang Group that hasn't been fully understood; there's no helping it."

In recent years, Tang Country's new weapons have been emerging one after another, new technologies are always a headache for the chasing Shireck designers and engineers.

Every new weapon that appeared was constructed from one, or even ten or dozens of new technologies.

Such iteration cannot be accomplished without first mastering the old technology: copying isn't always easy, manufacturing complex weapons equipment is not as simple as shading a few ABCDs on an answer sheet.

Old technologies are half-understood at best, and it's impossible to keep up when new ones come out. If a country can't even repair a MiG-21 properly, who would believe they can manufacture stealth planes?

Shireck was in this predicament, still researching the power systems of battleships and the design philosophy of armor protection, still trying to get planes into the monoplane era, still pondering whether to equip tanks with a couple more turrets to fulfil the long-cherished dream of a land cruiser...

Under such conditions, figuring out why the Tang Army's tanks use sloped armor certainly posed a difficulty for them.

But they believed that they would soon experiment and find data, discovering that sloped armor provides slightly better protection than vertical armor, and then adopt a similar design approach for their next generation of tank designs...